Gun Ownership Shoots up to 44% of all American Households!

A recent poll showed that as much as 44 percent of American households have guns in their home.

Gun sales may be on the rise, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into higher rates of gun ownership among households. Recent polls on gun ownership have shown a general decline of households who own guns.

A CBS poll conducted in June – after Omar Mateen killed over four dozen people at an Orlando nightclub – showed that gun ownership had hit an all-time low of 36 percent. The survey asked a pool of 1,001 Americans.

The gun ownership rate had remained relatively unchanged from January of 1978 until the same month in 1994, which saw a slight uptick from 51% (in 1978) to 53%. Since then, gun ownership began declining in the country, with June of 2016 seeing the lowest it’s been in nearly 40 years.

Most other polls conducted regarding gun ownership show a downward trend. The General Social Survey taken two years ago found that about 32 percent of households own at least one gun. And while a Gallup poll taken in October of last year found that about 43 percent owned a gun, that included guns that were stored outside the home, and on the same property.

But another poll conducted by Pew Research Center from August 9-16, and which surveyed over twice as many people than the CBS poll referenced above, showed an increase in gun ownership. Out of 2,010 respondents, 881 – or, nearly 44 percent – said that they have at least one gun in their household.

Just over half of respondents in the Pew poll – about 51 percent – reported not having a gun in their house.

Collectively, polls have shown a general decline in gun ownership over the past four decades, and particularly the last two decades. It’s hard to believe that gun ownership has shot up so dramatically in just a matter of weeks, but at the very least, perhaps what it shows is a reverse in the trend. Maybe over the next several years, we’ll see more and more people buying a gun for the first time. Hopefully, the effects of the media and political establishment’s brainwashing Americans about guns are wearing off.

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